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Really simple post today folks. This one's for people wondering how to start and end chapters in the projects they're writing. So here we go...

The beginning of a chapter should be a fishhook through the eyes.

It should yank the readers attention to the words with clarity and concern and bit of unease. Something should be happening at the beginning of a chapter, something you want to read more about. Here's an example from my short story The Line Unseen:

Jay knew the guy was dead before he stopped twitching on the rough concrete. The light wasn’t good in the alley, a single sodium bulb hanging by a limp neck from a pole beside the bar tinged everything in a urine glow, but it was good enough to see the man’s chest heave in and then out, then stay still.

Now this doubles as an opening line, but you get the picture. Something must be happening at the beginning of a chapter to make us want to read on. We have to care what happens next.

Now, for the end of a chapter you want to slide the reader right off a cliff's edge with almost nothing to hold onto. Here's an example from my novel Singularity:

Sullivan scanned the dresser for his necessities: ID, keys, and gun. They were all there. "Okay. Anything else I need to know?"

The silence in the phone sounded almost like that of a dead line. He wondered for a moment if his SAIC had hung up without further comment, but then he heard the familiar intake of breath before Hacking spoke.

"The victim was killed in solitary confinement."

The only thing there should be for the reader to grasp is, yep, you guessed it, the next chapter. Every chapter's ending should leave a question or concern hanging in the air. There should be some sort of peril or twist that no one saw coming. This makes the reader plunge forward to find out what happened and continue reading, and that, my friends, is really what we want as authors, to make readers go running forward, pell-mell into the fray we've created because they can't help themselves.

Hope this helps those that are wondering about beginning and ending chapters. Just remember to hook them then leave them hanging, and you'll be fine.